DACCA, Pakistan, March 17—Carrying all their belongings of value, their children balanced on their hips and cradled in their arms, nervous Bengalis are fleeing West Pakistan. Equally nervous Punjabis and other West Pakistanis are fleeing East Pakistan in reverse.

They fill the only two flights that still operate daily between East and West, now that the two wings of Pakistan—separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory—are confronting each other. The East Pakistanis threaten secession because of what they regard as years of exploitation by the Western wing.

Some West Pakistanis were killed in the rioting that followed the central Government's recent postponement of the National Assembly, in which East Pakistan has a majority. The Assembly is based in West Pakistan.

There is no reliable estimate of the number of civilians killed. The central Government says that 172 civilians were killed and that many of these were killed by other civilians. Awami League officials put the toll in the thousands.

Conversely, some of the several hundred thousand Bengalis in West Pakistan have been attacked there. Several million West Pakistanis live in the East.

The two Pakistan International Airlines flights a day are the only escape route for the targets of this growing animosity unless they try to travel across India by rail or road— a difficult process.

All other international air lines have stopped flying into Dacca, the East's capital, and some foreign countries have sent in special planes to evacuate their nationals.

Each of the two Pakistani round‐trip flights carries 160 people, which means 320 people each way, every day—so the waiting list is staggering.

At the Karachi Airport in West Pakistan the fleeing Bengalis—most of the mothers wearing the black burqa veil of the traditional Moslem wife— jammed the waiting room. They did not talk of panic, but their faces betrayed their fears.

They were taking all their gold jewelry, their transistor radios, blankets and their best clothes. Some of the luggage was modern but more often it consisted of shopping bags tied together with string. Many had not bought return tickets.

The flight takes nearly six hours, twice the normal time because India has banned all Pakistani flights over her territory since early February, after two Kashmiris hijacked an Indian plane to Pakistan and blew it up there.

Now all Pakistani planes must go around India by southerly sea route, sometimes stopping in Ceylon to refuel.

Most of the Bengali passengers refused to give the real reason for their trip. “I am going home for rest and recreation,” one man said.

“My mother hasn't seen us for a long time,” said another. But one young Bengali who said that he was going home on “leave” was asked if he was afraid to stay in West Pakistan any longer. “Yes, I am afraid,” he said as if a weight had been lifted from him, adding, “One of my friends was attacked and beaten yesterday.”

Some of the Bengalis in West Pakistan have government jobs there but most work at factory jobs in and around Karachi, an industrial center.

The flight was uneventful except for the squalling of infants and the coos of harried mothers. But there was one telling moment.

As the Boeing 707 swept up the Bay of Bengal and came within sight of the East Pakistan coastline, the Bengalis rose from their seats en masse and pressed to the windows, their faces alight. They did not need a Statue of Liberty to tell them that they were home. “I have come home for peace,” said a man whose eyes had misted over.